Abstract
Abstract
Today, a number of etymologically related native and non-native English and German suffixes derive nouns and
adjectives from entire phrases, suggesting that these suffixes have evolved clitic-like properties. By providing a diachronic
analysis of dictionary entries that is underpinned by corpus searches, this paper traces how this property of the schemas of
German ‑ig, ‑er and ‑ismus and of English ‑y,
‑er and ‑ism has evolved in the respective languages. The present analysis reveals that some
developments appear to have taken place in parallel, while others are language-specific, which offers novel insights to our
understanding of diachronic change affecting morphological schemas.
Publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Subject
Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics